A London Gem for Classicists
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A London Gem for Classicists
Unsworths Booksellers at 12 Bloomsbury St - if you're ever in London, this is *THE* bookstore to check out!
I wandered in, rather by accident, a few days ago - was heading back from the British Museum when I lost my way and pulled into the nearest shop to escape the cold. (I'm sure the Canadians here will be laughing at what I call cold weather, but after Mauritius, English winter is **freezing**.)
You can imagine my delight when I was greeted with signs pointing out the Classics sections - not just the fact that they HAD a Classics section, but the signs were written in Latin and ancient Greek!
They stock the widest range of classical books I've seen outside an Oxford library: new publications (texts and scholarly materials), older secondhand books (not necessarily cheap, but reasonably-priced), and downstairs they have old stuff (as in, centuries-old rare and valuable books).
Speaking of which I fell in love with this gorgeous 3-volume set of Pindar's poems - small books that could easily fit in your pocket - bound in blue-green embossed leather with gilded page-edges, published in 1754 and selling for about £900 (roughly US $1700)...
As far as purchases I actually made... for the most part, just texts which I needed for my course: Xenophon's Memorabilia and Cyropaedia (Teubner editions) and a few Aristophanian comedies (assorted editions). But at least I know where to go now, when I come back to London for university....
I wandered in, rather by accident, a few days ago - was heading back from the British Museum when I lost my way and pulled into the nearest shop to escape the cold. (I'm sure the Canadians here will be laughing at what I call cold weather, but after Mauritius, English winter is **freezing**.)
You can imagine my delight when I was greeted with signs pointing out the Classics sections - not just the fact that they HAD a Classics section, but the signs were written in Latin and ancient Greek!
They stock the widest range of classical books I've seen outside an Oxford library: new publications (texts and scholarly materials), older secondhand books (not necessarily cheap, but reasonably-priced), and downstairs they have old stuff (as in, centuries-old rare and valuable books).
Speaking of which I fell in love with this gorgeous 3-volume set of Pindar's poems - small books that could easily fit in your pocket - bound in blue-green embossed leather with gilded page-edges, published in 1754 and selling for about £900 (roughly US $1700)...
As far as purchases I actually made... for the most part, just texts which I needed for my course: Xenophon's Memorabilia and Cyropaedia (Teubner editions) and a few Aristophanian comedies (assorted editions). But at least I know where to go now, when I come back to London for university....
Last edited by Raya on Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I wonder if there are any persons there not having come from a northern English grammar school Ac Mauritius longe abest
Personally I would have preferred that school which was 80% female!
Anyway that's another discussion. I can't wait for my first classics bookshop experience. This is because here, classics are dead> In northern England it may still be alive but in Wales we have the people focusing on the welsh being forced into us but rejected like a bad kidney.
It will be so foreign and such an unprecedented experience for me.
I can picture myself running around knocking all the shelves down searching for the non existent Latin For Beginnerskey. Only joking the exercises are easy.
Personally I would have preferred that school which was 80% female!
Anyway that's another discussion. I can't wait for my first classics bookshop experience. This is because here, classics are dead> In northern England it may still be alive but in Wales we have the people focusing on the welsh being forced into us but rejected like a bad kidney.
It will be so foreign and such an unprecedented experience for me.
I can picture myself running around knocking all the shelves down searching for the non existent Latin For Beginnerskey. Only joking the exercises are easy.